SideReel is different from most of the websites we’ve reviewed in the online movie rental category. It’s primarily a search engine which allows you to locate TV shows from other sites across the web, but it also offers the ability to stream movies. You can check out free movies from the US, Canada and the UK, or access paid movies if you choose. Their choice of movies is pretty limited, although there are thousands upon thousands of TV shows available if you can find a link that works for you.

Finding a show that will play for you can be a problem at times. First you need to locate the show on SideReel, which isn’t too hard because there’s a search function and you can also just browse the most popular shows or the newest shows. Once you’ve found a show, however, the site will recommend a few sites that you can access to watch it. We found that many of these were dead ends, requiring you to sign up to a separate site (and pay) or were simply poor quality. Much of this may be down to where you live: watching US shows from the UK seems to cause problems at times, and it’s likely that the reverse is also true. There are a number of free movies to stream and some decent titles are available. However the choice is very limited and you won’t find anything new available. Most of the movies we looked at were from the 1990s or earlier, so if you’re looking to watch the latest Hollywood blockbusters then you’ll need to look somewhere else.

SideReel.com is fairly well constructed and allows you to track your favourite shows, check when they’re on, locate previous seasons and more. This is all simple to do and sign up takes literally 2 minutes. You are given a profile page which lets others learn a little about the sort of things you enjoy watching and you can also sign in using Facebook or Twitter. Support is okay but not great, with an FAQ and the ability to email staff. All things considered, SideReel could be a useful free resource if you have the patience to hunt through websites to find a show that you can’t watch through conventional means. If you’re not too picky then its free films are worth checking out, but generally this won’t suffice if you’re looking for a wide range of modern movies.